Wall Street Journal says Yellow Pages in a tailspin

The yellow pages are in trouble.  They have to innovate or die.  Start by adding more value to business customers.  In this more difficult times, folks are re-evaluating their marketing budgets.

DEX (child of RH Donnelly) is about to be delisted on the NYSE

DEX is having some serious financial problems, given that their share price went from $60 to just pennies in the last few months.  If this is not a wake up call, not sure what is.  To be kicked off the NYSE for having your share price stay at under a dollar and for having a market cap of under $75MM is bad news.   All this from a company making 90% margins.  It’s an amazingly good business from a cash perspective– they collect a ton of money from advertisers, and compare that against what it actually costs to print the books.

DEX– time to wake up and get on-line. Your partnership or ownership stake with Webvisible is the easy way out, but won’t last in the long run.

Dex’s Corrupt Methods, Raised Rates and No Results

In all my 20+ years of being an adult and doing business with many different types of companies in many different capacities, I have never dealt with a company more corrupt and slimey as Dex Media. I signed up for a yellow pages ad when I was still new in the business. I was very excited at the thought of being in the yellow pages, and being in my 40’s, that was pretty cool. I didn’t realize that no one ever picks up a phone book anymore.

Anyway, I agreed to do this for a year, as the salesman told me the contract was for. And every month I had to drop money into an ad that brought me no business. I counted the months for the year to end. In December some woman called saying to call her about renewing my ad. I just ignored her since I had no intention of renewing my ad. She was not the salesperson that sold me the ad the year before. I didnt’ know who this woman was and assumed she was just a telemarketer for Dex.

Next thing I know, I am getting bills for double the cost in January. I called to ask what the heck this was all about and they told me that my ad automatically renewed because I didn’t put in writing that I wanted to cancel it.  I told them that I never agreed to that. They referred me to some “terms of agreement’ that was mentioned in small print on the contract that I signed. I told them the salesman told me it was only a one year commitment. They said that it was in the contract and that I was obligated to pay for the ad and it also says in the contract that they have the right to increase the cost as well. They claimed that they had sent me a warning in the mail and called me to tell me that if I didn’t put it in writing, my ad would renew. This was an outright lie! I never recieved anything but bills from them and no notice in the bill either. I only got what sounded like a marketing call, no warning like they claimed. I was outraged.

I tried to contact my salesman. He refused to return my phone calls or emails. I finally was able to nail him down in person and he admitted he told me it would be only a year and was surprised it was renewed without my permission. He said he’d talk to his manager and nothing ever came of it. I sent letter after letter attached to my signed contract that stated I would be billed for “12 consecutive months” protesting the bill. They just continued to send bills and eventually letters threatening to report me to a collection agency. They started tacking on extra fees, a few hundred dollars here, a few more there. The bills just kept climbing. I have never dealt with these issues with other marketing networks.

I finally decided to seek outside help. Dennis of Blitzlocal agreed to try and help me get the whole thing straightened out. He was amazing! He took over the entire matter. He contacted them in writing and phone calls and notified them that he was now my limited Power of Attorney and to send him all the bills and notifications. He instructed them not to contact me but to direct all correspondence to him. I followed up with this by notifying them myself.  They completely ignored my request and continued to harrass me with bills, threat letters and phone calls from their internal collections department. This went on for months and months.

I was starting to get very concerned as the end of the year neared. Dennis assured me not to worry. That they were just trying to wear me down, which they were. He stayed strong and determined. He was very comforting and supportive. I feared my perfect credit score would be ruined by these crooks! I feared continued extra charges, and he stayed calm and confident. Eventually he was able to reach someone with some authority that could handle the situation and we are finally making some progress. I have since switched my focus and budget to online local advertising, which is completely performance based.

I am eternally grateful to Blitzlocal for their undying support and expertise in managing my business, on so many levels. THANK YOU BLITZLOCAL!!

Shrinking Yellow Page Popularity = Job Losses

On October 7, 2008, Yellow Pages publisher, RH Donnelly laid off about 30 workers in Morrisville, NC, 46 in Bristol, TN and 12 others in Dunmore, PA.  Earlier this year, the company eliminated 240 positions through layoffs and attrition.  The company laid off 100 employees in 2002 amid declining sales.  At that time, they blamed it on an economy where small businesses were strapped for cash and spending less on ads.  While recent layoffs are partially blamed on a weak national economy, the company does admit that it is partly due to the fact that many companies are relegating more and more of their advertising budgets to the Internet.

Not only are companies turning to internet advertising, but consumers are much more likely to let their fingers do the walking over the keyboard, then to expend the energy to pull out the Yellow Pages and have their fingers walk across pages and pages of paper.

Workers laid off this past week were primarily focused on design, page layout, printing, publishing and distribution.   These former employees should see it as an opportunity to shift their focus to the Internet as well.  Their skill should transfer nicely as long as they study the competition and understand that hardball tactics are not the way to go in a very competitive, web-based landscape, where advertisers are becoming more and more aware of ROI.

More Resources:

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/1928505/

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5553/is_200201/ai_n21577249